Sweet Days

4–6 minutes

~ Ojai ~

Tonight is my first night in Ojai. My new home. I’ve spent the last couple of days hauling my things from Vista Del Mar to a small flat in a great neighborhood in downtown Ojai. The flat is cute, fresh, and classic with its turn-of-the-century candlelight fixtures.

Small, tiny even, but magical.

The porch, framed in climbing, blooming white rose vines, sold me.

It’s a temporary, yet perfect nest.

***

“I could sell everything” has crossed my mind more than once. There’s a POD container somewhere, filled with things I once swore I couldn’t live without. My so-called “favorite things.” Funny how easily they stop feeling important. How quickly the weight of them becomes just that — weight.

I feel very much like I did walking the Camino in Spain, or driving across the United States last fall.

Light and free.

I like not having “stuff”. Material things cost you more in the long run.

I’m solo in this small town. I don’t know a soul here.

I like not being known. I like that no one here knows my story.

The stuff and the story – you can’t take it with you when you die.

***

I’ve taken on a front desk gig at a local inn.

Nothing solid, but it pays a little something.

I think I made the right choice, sticking to the plan, landing in Ojai,

breathing through the unknown, and giving it an honest go.

I’m nervous, like a teenager’s first day at a new high school.

Curious about everything.

Summer 2026 feels like it’s going to be a long, hot nostalgic 1980s movie complete with the grainy, filtered haze of the era’s film

~ Friday the 13th ~

I took a long walk through the neighborhood this evening. Sunset hung low in the valley like a welcome basket filled with treats. Clouds of thickly spun pink cotton candy and rich whipped tangerine taffy drifting along the evening current like the S.S. Wonkatania.

There’s a scent to Ojai that catches me on my midnight strolls through the neighborhoods. Sweet, floral. It smells like a white flower of some sort, nestled under the rich, earthy smell of oak, like a lover’s whisper, stopping me mid-stride.

The enchanting bouquet of a secret garden not yet revealed.

***

Ojai is my home, Exhale…an unexpected heart arrival I haven’t felt in quite some time.

Decades, I’m sure.

I’m still in transition, still in need of a good job, a permanent home.

I’ll get there. They will come.

For now I’m enjoying the reprieve from worry and instability.

Tonight I’m home. Safe. Fed. Happy.

~ Saturday the 14th ~

An evocative peace rings out in Ojai.

The church bells toll invoking memories of bells at dusk in the south of France, through Basque Country and into Spain, walking through quaint villages that had woken with the sound of the local abbey bells after an afternoon siesta – inviting a stretch, a bottle of wine, double cheek kisses and an evening gathering of familia y amigos en la piazza.

Ojai is my south of France, my warm summer nights in Spain.

~ Sunday the 15th ~

The Farmer and the Cook is quickly becoming my favorite restaurant hangout.

One hundred percent organic, fresh, and funky.

A grocery store, wine shop, and café all at once, with pretty good vegetarian food.

The place feels and looks like it was picked up in Big Sur and dropped in Ojai.

Today’s Order:

a cauliflower burrito with black beans, fresh pico, in a handmade tortilla,

a house-made dirty chai and a peanut butter cookie.

A warm embrace wrapped in California comfort food.

I’m Happy

To Be

Here

~ Sunday Evening ~

The flat comes equipped with a kitchenette and not just any air fryer but with a NINJA Air Fryer.

I’m not well versed in air fryers but by the looks of it the NINJA Air Fryer is the king of the fryers.

Silver, sleek, galactic settings.

After a day’s work, I thought I would try my hand at air frying.

On the Menu:

Toasted Hotdog & Bun, a fresh green salad

Following Google directions.

Interesting.

Aside from fixin’ an alfresco salad outside on the porch, preparing a decent dinner in the large bathroom is the only logical setup.

So what’s a girl to do?

Turn on a mellow Spanish guitar playlist.

Put on her most colorful bathrobe, comfy socks and open a bottle of rosé.

The place is well stocked for a light dinner, everything sized perfectly to navigate such a small space.

With the tiny kitchenette steps away from the bathroom, I prepared my salad.

I was once again transported down a memory worm hole to a tiny, quaint Parisian apartment that I once occupied, and then revisiting a small dorm room in an Ashram that I lived in for several years.

Enjoying the music, and the excitement of being in a new place, rebuilding my life.

Moving with awareness, strategic, carefully storing and cleaning up. Not impossible, altho’ I won’t be baking banana bread here anytime soon.

Laughing out loud as I placed a small bin in the tub to soak the dirty dishes.

A sweet evening, fun, relaxing. Peaceful.

I enjoyed an air-fried gourmet grilled frank, complete with a toasted bun, Japanese BBQ sauce, yellow mustard, some greens, and a kosher dill pickle, all while taking in a pink taffy sky from a porch -with trailing white roses, and the whispered scent of a secret garden

Night four. Ojai